Australia

Capitalism: bruised but still champion

These are difficult times for liberals. The mood around the world is turning against them. Politicians find it easier to blame crazy economists and greedy managers for financial turmoil than to understand and fix their own mistakes. Free-marketers still have the evidence of economic history on their side, but they will have to make their case more forcefully from now on. They face a constant battle of ideas that can never be decisively won. But they can take consolation in the fact that today's swing to the left will not spell the end of history, let alone of capitalism. [...]

When Hassle Means Help

With the number of people out of work and living off benefits staying stubbornly above 4 million, policy makers are increasingly looking at new ideas to get people off welfare and into work. Especially because, since 1997, over £75 billion of Government funds has been ploughed into creating welfare to work programmes. When Hassle Means Help, with contributions from international welfare experts, examines why conditionality works well in other countries, such as the US, Sweden and Germany – why it isn’t working in the UK - and how governments can most effectively get people back into work. [...]

Mehr Schröder und Rudd, weniger Lafontaine und Dunwoody

Von Karl Marx wussten die Sozialisten, dass sich Geschichte zweimal ereignet: das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce. Heutige Sozialdemokraten können hingegen erleben, wie sich die Geschichte gleich mehrfach und an unterschiedlichen Orten wiederholt. Wie viel davon Tragödie und wie viel Farce ist, steht auf einem anderen Blatt. [...]

Paying for Success – How to make contracting out work in employment services

Policy Exchange commissioned research about five countries that have reformed the way in which they provide employment services to jobseekers: Australia, the United States (Wisconsin), Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. These countries are most frequently mentioned in welfare reform debates. Their experiences are assessed with regard to the lessons they hold for the UK by former Secretary of State for Social Security, Peter Lilley MP. [...]

She’ll be right, mate.

What do you do with a government that has created two million new jobs? That has halved inflation? Under which real wages went up 20 per cent? Which cut the national tax burden? Under which exports doubled? Kick it out. So said the Australian electorate last weekend. [...]

Bigger Better Faster More – Why some countries plan better than others

Following the success of Unaffordable Housing – Fables and Myths, which exposed the failings of Britain’s centrally planned system of development, Alan W. Evans and Oliver Marc Hartwich went on a journey in search of alternatives. Interviewing planners, politicians, real estate agents and academics in four countries – Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Australia – they uncovered how other countries succeed, and sometimes fail, to give people the housing they want. [...]

Australien – Wettbewerb in Vielfalt

Federalism fosters the traditionally Australian, but currently atrophying, qualities of responsibility and self-reliance. It is desirable in a small country and indispensable in a large one. [...]